Pere Ubu formed in Cleveland in 1975 to pursue a singular sonic vision far removed from anything on the radio. Four decades later, the highly influential band is still making music that falls under its self-described term “avant-garage.” Forty years on, lead singer and lyricist David Thomas is at the top of his game on the band’s latest album, titled 20 Years In A Montana Missile Silo.

The title is based around themes of isolation and claustrophobia, with a taste of Cold War paranoia thrown in too.

“The key song is probably Toe 2 Toe, which describes this guy who has been working for 20 years in a missile silo, sitting there staring at the button that destroys the world,” said Thomas. “He comes home every day and it’s all about ‘How was work dear?’ — which he can’t discuss. It’s as though he is divided into three parts: the job, the home, and somewhere the actual person.”

Pere Ubu might not be the band to look for if you favour love songs. At the ubuprojex.com website, the mission statement spells out the band’s raison d’etre: “We sell soul. It’s Not Content. It’s called music. Pere Ubu! The Avant Garage!”

Coming from an outsider crew whose classic tracks include Final Solution, The Vulgar Boatmen Bird and Raygun Suitcase, the material on the new album such as Monkey Bizness or Prison of the Senses seems right in line with previous output. It also comes at a time of renewed popularity and attention being paid to the act. It’s last album, 2014’s Carnival of Souls, saw two tracks placed in episodes of the — appropriately — cult TV series American Horror Story. Thomas doesn’t pay much attention to this, save to acknowledge that he is pleased that the music is being heard.

“We don’t plan ahead with an eye on success, at all, because you can’t excel at anything unless you are willing to fail and fall flat,” he said. “I tell stories about ordinary people getting on, which, I suppose, are also emerging from a bubble of sorts. It’s nice that people are interested some of the time.”

Like similarly hard-to-categorize American artists such as Sparks or Scott Walker, Pere Ubu has enjoyed greater appeal in Europe than at home. Thomas calls Brighton, U.K., home, but he feels little in terms of creative inspiration coming from the place.

“I don’t have much to do with the English world. I like England and its great to visit, but don’t stay here,” he said. “It lacks the nobility of Cleveland.”

Yes, people, you just read that. Thomas goes on to explain the kind of effect that his hometown had on developing the restless creative drive that has defined his life.

“Cleveland was, has always been, a ghost town, most places are,” he said. “That is the effect of modernity, that driving force that shreds meaning, tradition, culture and worth. But there is also something poetic about these museums hanging on the verge of collapse.”

Something that can give you an apocalyptic world view perhaps?

“I’m not concerned with the political, with any socio-psychological statements,” said Thomas. “There is no clear destination like that with Pere Ubu. It’s a process, always a moment or a glimpse. Sometimes, that can span a series of albums, sometimes not.”

Thomas is engaged in a complete box set reissue series of the group’s past records and admits that the latest one, Drive, He Said 1994-2002, is presenting the albums Raygun Suitcase, Pennsylvania and St. Arkansas as a triology.

“It’s interesting because we’re getting to group them the way we wanted them grouped,” he said. “Mainly, I like getting everything cleaned up using the newest resolution technology and getting the best sound possible from the original recordings.”

He is well aware that the differences between the studio and the stage may sometimes confuse listeners, as Pere Ubu is never the same. The touring and studio versions of the group typically differ. For the coming North American outing Pere Ubu are Thomas, guitarist Gary Siperko (Rocket From the Tombs), bassist/backing vocalist Michele Temple, drummer Steve Mehlman, Analog synths and Theremin player Robert Wheeler, and special guest Kristof Hahn (Swans) on steel guitar.

“It’s only coincidentally the same band, and what manifests itself in concert is far from the studio where I spend years working on things,” he said. “This idea of note-perfect re-creations in concert just defines an excruciating ordinariness that is not what music is about. It needs to be chaotic, visceral.”

In other words, if you see this band live and catch someone lip-synching, it’s on purpose and probably intended to further that spontaneous explosion onstage, or an accident. Thomas says that for all the critical acclaim about Pere Ubu’s art rock, the band are “kind of a bunch of slobs.”

“We’re not a conceptual band,” he said. “We have a conceptual career.”

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